The state's child welfare agency has reached an agreement with a watchdog group to lower troubling caseload levels for workers who investigate hotline calls alleging abuse and neglect.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services plans to...

Fred Pennix recently drove into Chicago's crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood to check on two of the nearly 40 families under his watch as a state child-protection investigator. It was a holiday but, worried about the children's safety, he was going to...

An emergency room doctor called the state hotline in June after treating a Midlothian toddler whose split lip, swollen eyes and bruised forehead cast doubt on his mother's explanation that he fell off a bed.
The little boy's younger sister, the mother...

D'Andre Howard left plenty of clues that he was on a dangerous path before he was accused of killing three members of a Hoffman Estates family, but state officials and outside agencies failed to act on those warnings, a new report concludes.
Howard's...

Robert Wharton, the leader of one of the state’s largest nonprofits, was ousted from the organization, its board announced today. The move follows a Tribune report earlier this week that Wharton, chief executive officer of the Community and Economic...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Notre Dame's football team became eligible for a bowl game with Saturday night's 24-17 victory over Wake Forest.
But it almost certainly will not be one of the five BCS bowl games for which the Irish aspired to be eligible at the...